Hauna Hochstetler, a counselor at Sentinel Highschool, has recently become an author with the release of her new children’s book, Adventures with Profe.  In the book, Hochstetler, or Profe, and her students travel to Ecuador and explore the diverse culture of the country, all while teaching the reader small amounts of Spanish. Ms. Hochstelter is currently the counselor for the class of 2023 at Sentinel, and has been for the last four years. Before her life at Sentinel Hochstetler was a counselor at another school for one year, as well as a Spanish teacher for seven years. The events of her book are loosely based on the content of her Spanish classes. 

Hochstetler has been in the process of writing and publishing Adventures with Profe for almost two years now, however, she had the idea to write the book years ago when she lived in Ecuador with her husband. “We were traveling in Bolivia  and we were on a bus and I was talking about writing a children’s book, and so it’s been since 2015 that I’ve been talking about it. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do” (Hauna Hochstetler). Her experiences traveling the world, and teaching Spanish, have influenced the adventures found in her book, as well as comments that her students had made in her Spanish classes over the years as they learned about new cultures. It was when she went on maternity leave to take care of her now two year old child she was finally able to begin writing the book. 

An aspiration of Ms. Hochstetler’s is for the book to reflect the style of beloved characters Mrs. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus, and Carmen Sandiego, the main character of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego; T.V. shows she herself grew up watching. Her true hope for the people who read the book though is for children to become more interested and accepting of other cultures. “I just think there is so much value in learning about other places and being respectful of other people and cultures. I hope that’s what they take away” said Hochstetler. She also hopes that readers will finish the book and have learned a little Spanish, even if it’s just a few words and phrases. 

Hochstetler is self-publishing her book and it will be available to purchase on her website: Adventureswithprofe.com, as well as on Amazon. She stated that her husband has been experimenting with the possibility of putting the book in digital format, but for now it will only be available in paperback. It features beautiful illustrations from Nadia Ronquillo, who by coincidence, happens to be from Ecuador, and of course writing by Author Hauna Hochstetler. She hopes to eventually sell the book in local bookstores around Missoula. Ms. Hochstetler says that she would like her book to be more than just a passion project, she wants it to make an impact on the people who read it and in the future write more installments of the Adventures with Profe series.